Oaxaca: fifth member of CODEDI is murdered so far this year

In a communiqué, the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) reported that on October 25, 44-year-old Noel Castillo Aguilar, a member of this organization, was assassinated on his way home in the municipality of Santiago Astata.

It affirmed that “this crime is clearly of a political nature since he was a member of the local CODEDI group that is participating in the legitimate struggle to defend its beaches and territory in the region.” It recalled that “this murder is the second attack against the group of that community, since last year one of its representatives was assassinated, and it is also the third attack against compañeros belonging to the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights so far this 2018. This is why we consider that the only responsible for this and all the murders, attacks and violence that we have been subjected to, is the government of the State of Oaxaca led by Alejandro Murat Hinojosa for his complicity in obstructing the investigations and in encouraging attacks against us through the powerful device of impunity.”

CODEDI demanded justice in this and in the previous cases in addition to the cessation of violence against the organized peoples of the Southern Highlands of Oaxaca.

For its part, the Consultative Council of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists expressed its repudiation of the murders of two human rights defenders and a journalist in the last 24 hours. IT recalled that in the case of CODEDI, on July 17, another of its members, Abraham Hernández González, was assassinated, likewise on February 12 of this year, three persons were murdered: Alejandro Antonio Díaz Cruz (41 years old), Ignacio Basilio Ventura Martínez (17 years old) and Luis Ángel Martínez (18 years old), with no effective investigations or sanctions to those responsible.